


A Light in the Hallway (In the Dark of My Room)

by J (jaywright)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Additional Secondary Pairings Mentioned in Notes, C2E123 Spoilers, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:22:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29186241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaywright/pseuds/J
Summary: "The tower lets me into your room.  Did you know that?"
Relationships: Nott | Veth Brenatto/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 20
Kudos: 77





	A Light in the Hallway (In the Dark of My Room)

**Author's Note:**

> additional mentions of Veth/Yeza, Beau/Yasha, Fjord/Jester, & potential Caleb/Essek
> 
> (set post-C2E123 - this story has had a few different incarnations, and started life as a reaction to a stretch of episodes without much interaction between Caleb and Veth. it got shelved after we were blessed with some lovely moments between the two of them in the last few episodes, and this week, it's been reincarnated as a quick little comfort fic before a lot of things happen tomorrow night that are probably not going to be this. goddammit, they deserve some cuddles after last week, and so do we.)

The door to the Dynasty outpost swung shut behind them, blocking out the swirling snow, and Caleb collapsed.

He crumpled, folding to his knees there on the ground, and Veth watched the eyes of the Dynasty staff – already startled from their tasks by the explosive entrance of seven ragged travelers – either go wide with surprise or narrow in concern. Veth stepped to his side, pressing a hand to his shoulder, inches above where she knew the unwelcome eye sat, and she could feel him trembling. He clapped a hand to hers, holding onto her like a lifeline.

Essek floated out from a side hallway, his eyes falling immediately to Caleb. He started to move forward, reaching out, but it was Fjord who stepped up instead, standing in front of Caleb almost protectively, his voice ringing out in the sparse entryway of the outpost. "Did your people make it to the entrance in the northwest?" he asked crisply. 

Essek gave a sharp nod. "They did," he said in a matching tone. "They've sealed the entrance, but there was no sign of the people you're pursuing. It's unclear if they had already made it inside." His eyes went back to Caleb, but Fjord's intervention seemed to have jarred him, and he didn't make any further movements forward. Instead, he swept his eyes over all of them, taking in their battered, exhausted state, and he seemed to deflate a little, his eyebrows knitting in something that may have been concern.

"Come," he said, his voice dropping to a lower, gentler tone. "We don’t have much in the way of space here, but I can offer you a few rooms, and some warm food. My people are attempting to find any trace of these…Tomb Takers?" he confirmed, eyes flickering to Jester, who nodded weakly. "And we can strategize further after you've rested."

"One," Fjord said. He looked to Beau, who nodded in confirmation from beside Yasha. At Essek's enquiring look, he clarified, "One room will do just fine for us, thank you."

Caleb looked up at that. "Fjord," he said, his voice sounding broken. "I can't – "

"I know," Fjord said. He looked back to Essek. "We'd like to stay together."

Essek looked between them all, assessing, before nodding smoothly. "I understand," he said, although he struck Veth as someone who had never willingly slept in a room with another person in his entire life.

It was Beau who turned to Caleb to offer him a hand up, and he took it wordlessly, fitting his hand into hers and letting her take his weight, hauling him effortlessly to his feet. Beyond her, Jester flung her arms around Essek, hugging him tightly, his expression fading into something surprised but almost pleased.

Veth stayed close by Caleb's side as they followed Essek down the hall to an unremarkable door.

"I'll have some food sent," Essek assured them, opening the door for them. "Here. It's not much, but – " His words faded as Caleb came to a stop in front of him, looking him full in the face for the first time.

He reached up to clasp a hand to the side of Essek's face, tilting it so gently that Veth half thought he was going to kiss him right there. Instead, he said, " _Thank_ you, friend," softly and earnestly.

Some of the tension drained out of Essek's expression, one of his hands coming up to press to Caleb's. "Of course," he said. His eyes flickered between all of them. "I'm sorry," he said, "that I wasn't able to offer more. There has been – " he stepped back from Caleb's touch, looking back toward the entrance. "Well. We'll talk in the morning. There's much I have to explain to all of you, and I'm sure a number of details from your travels that you haven't been able to share with me yet as well." He gestured to the room. "Sleep for now." A wry smile pulled at his lips. "You all look like you need it."

"Wow, thanks, you look like shit, too," Beau said, but there was no bite to the words, and the mild smile Essek gave her seemed to acknowledge that.

"Sleep well, Beauregard," he said.

The smirk dropped immediately from her face.

The room was larger than the dome, but not by much. Extra cushions and blankets were delivered with the food, and everyone settled in exhaustedly, Fjord grumbling something about Caduceus and Beau taking the bed because they were the most injured, but Caduceus waved him off, already half asleep in a nest of blankets by the door. Beau took the bed without complaint, and after a brief standoff of significant looks, Yasha sighed heavily and climbed in next to her, curling protectively around her. 

Fjord propped himself against the wall opposite Caduceus, Jester pillowing her head on his lap, and Veth let herself fold into an exhausted ball in the far corner.

Caleb knelt by the door, fingers shaking as he carefully laid out silver wire along the edge of it. "No watches," he said, looking over his shoulder at the rest of them. "We get all the rest we can, as soon as we can. This will make a noise to alert all of us if anyone comes in."

"I could – " Fjord began, but he fell silent at a sharp look from Beau.

"Caleb's right," she said. "We've got nothing left in the tank. Everyone heal up and get your spells back. We don't know what's coming tomorrow."

Fjord nodded in response. He gave Yasha a hard look over her shoulder. "If she wakes up again like she did last night…" he said warningly.

Yasha nodded, her eyes looking haunted. "We'll wake you," she promised. "We'll wake everyone." Beau made a grumbling noise of protest, but Yasha gave her such a reproachful look that she scowled. 

"Okay, okay," she muttered, burying her face mutinously in the pillow.

Caleb knelt into the corner beside Veth. He said her name, quietly, hoarsely, and she was on him in a second, fitting herself into the curve of his arm and burying her face against his chest. He folded them down into the blankets she had spread out, fitting together as easily and effortlessly as they had all those nights on the road together. 

He felt sharp and fragile under her hands as she held him, and he was asleep in minutes, the trembling of nerves finally subsiding into a deep, heavy motionlessness.

She lay awake for much longer, staring up at the ceiling and trying to find some peace in the sounds of these people she cared about finding some rest around her.

Sleep took a long time, and when it came, it was filled with dark and formless dreams.

She woke early to the feeling of Frumpkin bursting into existence on her chest, and she looped her arms around him before even opening her eyes, squeezing a tiny sound of protest out of him before he wiggled out of her grasp to climb up Caleb.

She peeked her eyes open to find him sitting propped against the wall beside her, looking haggard but better than he had the night before. "Good morning, Veth," he said.

"Morning, at least," Beau grumbled from the bed. "Good remains to be seen."

It took hours to catch Essek up, to hear from him what his own mission entailed here in Aeor. As the day wore on, they joined some of his people searching for any sign of the Tomb Takers in the charted portions of the ruins, but they turned up nothing, their attempts to track and scry revealing nothing but more snow, more mysteries.

The expedition was harrowing, and while the Nein was in better shape when they returned to the outpost than they had been the night before, Veth could see the exhaustion lingering in the stances and eyes of everyone around her as Caleb knelt to cast the tower in their room that night.

They gave Essek a tour, Caleb playing the ever gracious host even through his weariness, and Veth had to admit that the way Essek's face went bright with wonder as he explored was worth it. The guest room had been made up to his tastes, and the fond smile that curled over his lips as he took it in after a lavish dinner was gratifying, but he excused himself with what seemed to be sincere regret, professing a need to be available to see to things at the outpost if needed.

Beau and Yasha disappeared shortly after dinner, after Yasha had announced abruptly, "I think. That maybe. We should all sleep in our own rooms tonight," and as the others drifted off to their own corners, Veth did as well, pacing her room for a while, working fruitlessly on some tinkering in the lab, until finally her eyelids were heavy and she found that her mind and fingers had lost all their concentration and dexterity.

Instead of going to bed, she went looking for Caleb.

His room was deserted, as usual, so she stood under the iris to the eighth floor, staring up at it and trying to remember the words Caleb had used. She tried a few variations, and when nothing worked, she muttered, " _Auf_ ," almost in frustration. The iris swirled open.

"Oh," she said aloud. "Yeah, I guess you don't really need a lock anymore."

Predictably, the doors on the eighth floor were all closed. "Caleb?" she called out, voice a little shaky, and received no reply. She looked from one door to another, curiosity overwhelming her, her fingers itching with the need to explore, until she found herself crossing to the door with an "8" printed on it. "Caleb, I'm coming in!" she called.

It was immediately apparent that the room was empty as she pushed the door open. It was much smaller than the other rooms she had seen, tiny and cramped, barred in on all sides. The window was also barred, and was frosted over like all the others in the tower, but the light of an unmistakably full moon was streaming in.

She knew this cell. 

Caleb's threadbare coat was spread out in the corner that Veth had slept in – that _Nott_ had slept in – and she felt a rush of soft affection overtake her at the memory of waking in the morning chilly on the hard floor, wrapped up carefully in the worn fabric. She knelt beside it, reaching out to touch it and almost expecting her hand to pass through it like an illusion, but it felt the same as she remembered, unexpectedly soft to the touch. She stayed there for a long moment, remembering this place, this time, the very different people that they had both been.

The door made a solid click she backed out and closed it behind her, and when she turned to the other doors, she found that the itching need to explore had drained out of her. Instead, she knocked on each door, calling Caleb's name, and when she got no answer, she returned to the center of the room and said, "Up," aloud.

The ninth floor was dazzling, and as her eyes adjusted, she could see the long form of Caleb stretched out on his back on the floor halfway across the room, staring up into the possibilities above. "You found me," he said easily, without turning to look at her. "How many did you go into?"

"I was looking for you," she said defensively.

"I'm not upset, Veth," he said evenly. "I shared the rooms with you all because it was time to." His jaw went tight. "Even if some of you will never understand."

She crossed the room to settle onto the floor beside him. She reached to touch her fingers to his face, feeling his gritting teeth tug at the muscles under his skin. "We don't have to understand," she said. "They're not for us." She looked up into the twinkling lights above them. "And I only went into one."

"Which one?"

She looked back down at him. "You know which one."

Some of the tension faded from his expression. " _Ja_ ," he agreed. He reached for her hand, holding it, letting his fingers pass over hers lightly. "I know which one."

She sat there for a while, enjoying the quiet possibility of the room, the feeling of her hand in his. "I guessed that you had extra rooms up here," she asked finally. "Know how?"

"Because I told you there were nine floors?" he said.

"Well, that," she allowed. "But also because you were never in your room when I went to sleep there." She felt him shift to look at her, and didn't meet his eyes. "The tower lets me into your room. Did you know that?"

"Of course," he said. "This tower does only what I've instructed it to do." His brow furrowed with concern. "But why weren't you sleeping in your own room? If there's something you'd like to change about it – "

"That room's for me and Yeza and Luc," she said, her voice coming out a little sharper than she meant it to. "Yeza and Luc aren't here."

"Oh." Caleb went quiet. "I only meant to make it clear that they were welcome here. I suppose it should have occurred to me to give you some space of your own as well. Next time, I can – "

"I don't want space of my own." The words snapped out of her, and Veth winced. She rubbed a hand over her eyes. "I'm sorry. That's not what I mean. Thank you, but no. I like my room, Caleb. I've just…" She sighed, sagging a little. Her voice felt tiny as the next words came out. "I've never really slept on my own. And being in there…well, I guess it's probably a little bit like what you feel like when you go into some of those rooms downstairs. A whole space reminding you of exactly what you've done wrong, exactly what you're still failing at."

He winced. "Veth…"

"So," she continued, "I'd go looking for you instead. And you were never in your room."

"No," he agreed. "I don't sleep there often."

She let out a weak little laugh. "I thought maybe you were sleeping with someone, and that's why you were never there."

He laughed as well, but his was startled and a little hollow. "Who would…?" he began, and cut himself off, shaking his head.

She looked at him sharply. "Any of them would be lucky to have you, Caleb," she said severely. She could see heat rising in his cheeks as he didn't meet her eyes. "I mean, I guess you're not really Beau's type. Or maybe Yasha's. And Caduceus doesn't really…well, anyway, Fjord or Jester should be _happy_ to jump your bones."

His laugh faded into a weak chuckle, but he finally let himself look at her. "Thank you," he said faintly. "I think?" He sobered a little, reaching to take her hands. "But Veth. You should have told me about your room. It would be easy enough to combine our floor, if you would like, on the nights when your family is not here. I hadn't realized you were unaccustomed to sleeping alone."

She shrugged. "It's been all of us in the dome or in inns for so long, and before that it was the two of us. And before _that_ , well. Goblins aren't big on privacy. We'd all just kind of pile together to sleep, for warmth and protection."

"And before, there was Yeza," he finished.

She nodded. "My home growing up wasn't too different from yours, either, except that it didn't have extra rooms downstairs, and the upstairs was more of a loft. So we all slept in the same room, if not exactly the same space."

He nodded. "Well, I cannot change the structure of the rooms for tonight, but you are welcome to sleep in my room, if you would like. And from now on, when your family is not here, we can have one big suite to ourselves. Does that suit you?"

She nodded eagerly. "If that's okay with you," she said. She shifted. "I know you said you don't sleep there often. I don't want you to feel like you _have_ to, just because I'm – "

"It's too quiet," he interrupted. She nodded. "I think too much. I think maybe that would be less the case, with you there." He pushed himself up off the floor, dropping a hand to his shoulder self-consciously. "Anyhow, I think it is probably best that I do not wake up alone these days. In case…" he trailed off, his fingers not quite touching the spot where the eye lay beneath his sleeve.

Veth reached out, pausing with her fingers inches from his arm and darting her eyes up to his. "Can I touch it?"

He froze, swallowing. "I…" he said hesitantly. He closed his eyes. "Yes." He opened them again, looking around them. "But not here."

She looked too, imagined dozens of variations of the eye spreading out around them, and let out a tiny shiver. "No," she agreed. "That's probably a good call."

He stood and reached down a hand for her, but as she reached for it, instead of taking it, he bent down to loop his arm around her and haul her up into his arms in a way he hadn't done since she was a goblin. Her arms went easily around his neck as she felt him adjust to the unfamiliar weight of her. 

She grinned, tilting her head against his. "Not sure I want to trust this precious halfling form to a noodle-armed wizard," she said.

He pretended to jostle her in his arms, but kept a firm grip around her. "Well, look, it's true that I am no Fjord," he said wryly, and she laughed, "but this, I can do. Anyway," he returned her grin. "If I drop you on the way down, just think _up_."

They reached the seventh floor safely, his feet touching lightly onto the ground as they landed, and he turned toward his own room with Veth still cradled in his arms. She half expected him to stop in the sitting room, to set her onto the couch beside the hearth, but instead he headed straight for the bedroom, sitting down on the edge of the bed with her still held securely in his arms. He let his forehead rest against hers, breathing slowly for a long moment, and she closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of no longer being alone in this bed.

Eventually, he sat back, and she twisted out of his arms, settling onto her knees beside him. He reached for his holster first, undoing it and setting it carefully on top of the teetering stack of books on his bedside table. He shook out his shoulders, stretching his back as he undid his shirt and shoved it down just far enough to bare the eye.

Both of them stared down at it, and it stared back.

"Has it...done anything?" Veth asked hesitantly, raising a hand but not quite touching it, hovering just out of its space. "Do you feel any different? Feel like you can do anything you didn't used to be able to do?"

"No," Caleb said. He shifted his arm a little. "It feels like...nothing. Like it's not even there."

She reached out finally, closing the distance between them, touching her fingers to his arm beneath the eye. He closed his own eyes, breath going shallow.

Her fingers traced up his arm and brushed against the edge of the eye, warm and brown and alive against the unnatural red gleam. "I can't feel it," he admitted. "I can't feel you. When you…" He opened his eyes to confirm that her fingers were pressing to the strange red mark against his skin. "I can't feel it." She could see panic rise in him, and she widened her fingers to circle the eye instead, bracing against his skin where it stretched strangely around the intrusion. He let out a shaky breath. "I feel that."

"Good." Her thumb soothed his skin, brushing over it lightly in a way that reminded her of curling up in his arms back in their days on the road, warm and angular against each other, her sharp fingers tracing patterns that meant nothing against his skin.

She kept going, drawing nonsense, her fingers pressing to the eye, feeling it cool and lifeless in comparison to his warm living skin where she braced her thumb, still touching him soothingly, grounding both of them.

He watched, curious. "It is not a lock, Veth," he said eventually. "I don't think it's going to reveal its secrets to you if you press the right part of it."

She shrugged. "You don't know," she pointed out. "It might." She booped her finger hard against the iris, and Caleb laughed a little weakly.

She ran her thumb along the edge of it a final time before pulling her hand away. He pulled his shirt back over it immediately, looking relieved to cover it up. She clasped a hand over the spot on his sleeve and looked up at him. "You scared?" she asked.

"Shitless," he replied dryly. "You?"

She let out a mirthless laugh. "Always."

He drew her into his arms, and she pressed her face into his neck. "I don't know what we're going to find here," he said. "But selfishly, I'm glad that you will be here to find it with me."

"Me too," she agreed, the words muffled against his skin. "Also selfishly."

He shifted, letting them both drop back against the pillows, and she curled comfortably into his side. His arms were steady and familiar around her, but they felt strange and unexpected against the soft curves of this body that she was still adjusting to. He made a quiet pleased noise as she burrowed against him, pulling her close. "I've missed this," he mumbled, his face pressing to her hair in what might have been a kiss.

"We sleep next to each other in the dome like every night," she pointed out.

" _Ja_ ," he agreed, "we do, but it's not the same."

"No," she said quietly. "It's not." She lay quietly in his arms for a long moment before admitting, "I've missed this, too."

She felt his arms shift a little, his hands twisting around near the nape of her neck, and it took a small tug at her head for her to realize that he was undoing her braids. She groaned appreciatively, tilting to press her forehead to his chest and staying there still and quiet while he brushed her hair out with his fingers, leaving it in a dark cloud around her head and shoulders.

When he finally finished, she propped her chin on his chest to look up at him, and found him staring back at her with unbearable fondness in his eyes. His lips curved into an appreciative smile, his fingers raking through the hair at the side of her head. "Beautiful," he said, almost absently, and she felt her cheeks go hot.

She leaned into his touch. "Thanks," she said, responding to the action rather than his words. "I never realize that they're giving me a headache until I take them out."

He scritched lightly at the side of her head before letting his hand drop. "It always seemed unfair," he said, "that you'd play with my hair, but you'd never let me touch yours. I thought you just didn't like it, but...well, I understood, eventually." He smiled down at her. "I like this better."

She bit her lip. "Yeah?" she asked. An anxiety she hadn't let herself name before welled up in her, and she shifted her eyes away.

His brows knit together. " _Ja_ , of course," he said. He touched her chin, tilting her face back to his. "Veth, do you think - "

"I don't know what I think!" she burst out, pulling back a little from his touch, sitting up beside him. "I just - " There was a panic in her that had been turned toward external factors for so long that she almost didn't recognize it, turned back in at her life like this. She swallowed tightly. "I'm different, is all," she said in a small voice. "And we haven't really..." she shrugged. "There's been a lot going on."

Caleb sat up as well, reaching to take her hands. "Veth," he said, looking at her seriously. "I'm not going to say that you're not different, that you only look different, because I don't know that that's true. Being back in this body, it _has_ changed things for you, and maybe it has changed you as well. That's for you to figure out, not me. But nothing about this - not the body, not the name, not the new situation that you are trying to balance with your family - none of it has changed who you are _to me_. That is the same as it has always been."

She looked down at their hands twisted together, thin and pale around soft and brown instead of sharp and green. She opened her mouth to say, _"And who's that?"_ , but the words caught in her throat.

He answered her anyway. "You," he said, squeezing her hands, "are Veth Brenatto, who was once Nott the Brave, who was once a different Veth Brenatto entirely. First and foremost to me, you are my friend. You have been my friend through many adventures, and troubles, and places in this world. You are clever, and witty, and passionate, and yes, brave, and you are kind, even if you pretend to people like Fjord that you are not." He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to it. "You are my family. You are..." for the first time he hesitated, finishing in a lower tone, "you are a piece of my heart."

She closed her eyes, tilting her head to press against their clasped hands. "Caleb, " she said unsteadily, and instead of finding any words, she flung her arms around him, tackling him back into the bed.

A startled laugh whooshed out of him, his arms coming up to clasp her to him again. "Things have changed," he said. "And judging by what's happening right now, they will continue to. But we will see our way through them together."

"Together," she agreed.

He lifted his head, looking at her. "And if you decide - _when_ you decide that - "

"Nope," she cut in. "Uh-uh, no, we're not doing that now. We're having a nice moment, here. Don't ruin it."

He snapped his mouth shut and nodded. "Later, then."

"Later," she agreed. She leaned in to press a soft kiss to his cheek, his beard rough under her lips. "Thank you, though," she said. "For what you were going to say."

His face was flushed when she pulled away. " _Ja_ ," he agreed vaguely.

She burrowed in against his chest again, and his arms went around her, warm and comforting, his cheek pressing to the top of her head. She could feel him staring up at the canopy above them, deep in thought, so she let her hand fall to his shoulder - the unmarked one – and begin tracing patterns there, alchemical symbols trailing into words in halfling, becoming pictures of unicorns and meaningless spirals, the same way that she had done on so many nights curled against him in much less pleasant spaces. Slowly, eventually, she felt him relax beneath her, felt his arms go heavy and still around her.

"Sleep well," she whispered, closing her eyes, and she followed him into sleep, warm and comfortable in his arms, in the home that he had built for his friends, for himself, and for her.


End file.
